France Under Louis XIV

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France Under Louis XIV

• One response to the crises of the seventeenth
  century was to seek stability by increasing the
  monarchys power.
  
• This response historians call absolutism, a
  system in which the ruler has total power.
  
• It also includes the idea of the divine right of
  kings.
  

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France Under Louis XIV

• Absolute monarchs could make laws, levy taxes,
  administer justice, control the states
  officials, and determine foreign policy
  
• The best example of seventeenth-century
  absolutism is the reign of Louis XIV of France.
  
• French power and culture spread throughout
  Europe.
  
• Other courts imitated the court of Louis XIV.

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France Under Louis XIV

• Other courts imitated the court of Louis XIV.
• Louis XIII and Louis XIV were only boys when they
  came to power.
  

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France Under Louis XIV

• A royal minister held power for each up to a
  certain age, Cardinal Richelieu for Louis XIII
  and Cardinal Marazin for Louis XIV.
  
• These ministers helped preserve the monarchy.

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France Under Louis XIV

• Richelieu took political and military rights from
  the Huguenots, a perceived threat to the throne,
  and thwarted a number of plots by nobles through
  a system of spies, and executing the
  conspirators.

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France Under Louis XIV

• Louis XIV came to the throne in 1643 at age
  four.
  
• During Marazins rule, nobles rebelled against
  the throne, but their efforts were crushed.
  
• Many French people concluded that the best chance
  for stability was with a monarch.
  

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France Under Louis XIV

• Louis XIV took power in 1661 at age 23.
• He wanted to be and was to be sole ruler of
  France.
  
• All were to report to him for orders or approval
  of orders.
  
• He fostered the myth of himself as the Sun
  Kingthe source of light for his people.
  

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France Under Louis XIV

• The royal court Louis established at Versailles
  served three purposes. It was the kings
  household, the location of the chief offices of
  the state, and a place where the powerful could
  find favors and offices for themselves.
• From Versailles, Louis controlled the central
  policy-making machinery of government.
  

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Royal Court at Versailles
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France Under Louis XIV

• Louis deposed nobles and princes from the royal
  council and invited them to Versailles where he
  hoped court life would distract them from
  politics.
• This tactic often worked.
• Louis government ministers were to obey his
  every wish.
  
• He ruled with absolute authority in the three
  traditional areas of royal authority foreign
  policy, the Church, and taxes.
  

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France Under Louis XIV

• Louis had an anti-Huguenot policy, wanting the
  Huguenots to convert to Catholicism.
  
• He destroyed Huguenot churches and closed
  Huguenot schools.
  
• As many as two hundred thousand Protestants fled
  France.
  

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France Under Louis XIV

• Louis developed a standing army of four hundred
  thousand.
  
• He wanted the Bourbon dynasty to dominate Europe.
  
  
• To achieve this goal, he waged four wars between
  1667 and 1713, causing many other nations to form
  alliances against him.
  
• He did add some lands to France and set up a
  member of his dynasty on Spains throne.
  

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France Under Louis XIV

• The Sun King died in 1715.
• France was debt-ridden and surrounded by enemies.
  
  
• On his deathbed he seemed remorseful for not
  caring for the people more.
  

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Absolutism in Central and Eastern Europe

• After the Thirty Years War, two German
  statesPrussia and Austriaemerged in the
  seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as great
  powers.
• Frederick William the Great Elector laid the
  basis for the Prussian state.
  
• He built an efficient standing army of forty
  thousand men, the fourth largest army in Europe.
  

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Absolutism in Central and Eastern Europe

• Frederick William set up the General War
  Commissariat to oversee the army.
  
• It soon became a bureaucratic machine for civil
  government as well.
  
• Frederick William used it to govern the state.
• Many members were landed aristocracy known as
  Junkers, who served in the army as well.
  
• Frederick Williams son became King Frederick I
  in 1701.

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Absolutism in Central and Eastern Europe

• The Austrian Hapsburgs had long been Holy Roman
  emperors.
  
• After the Thirty Years War, they created a new
  empire in eastern and southeastern Europe.
  
• Its core was in present-day Austria, the Czech
  Republic, and Hungary.
  
• After the defeat of the Turks in 1687, Austria
  took control of Transylvania, Croatia, and
  Slovenia as well.
  

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Absolutism in Central and Eastern Europe

• The Austrian monarchy never was a centralized,
  absolutist state, however. It was made up of many
  national groups.
  
• The empire was a set of territories held together
  by the Hapsburg emperor, who was archduke of
  Austria, king of Bohemia, and king of Hungary.
  

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Ivan the Terrible
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Ivan the Terrible

• In the sixteenth century, Ivan IV became the
  first Russian ruler to take the title of czar,
  Russian for caesar.
  
• Called Ivan the Terrible for his ruthlessness, he
  expanded Russia eastward and crushed the power of
  the Russian boyars (the nobility).
  

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Peter the Great
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Peter the Great

• The end of Ivans rule in 1584 was followed by a
  period of anarchy called the Time of Troubles.
  
• It ended when the national assembly chose Michael
  Romanov as czar in 1613.
  
• The Romanov dynasty lasted until 1917.

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Peter the Great

• Its most prominent member was Peter the Great, an
  absolutist who believed in the divine right of
  kings.
  
• He became czar in 1689. Peter soon made a trip to
  the West, and he returned determined to
  Europeanize Russia.
  
• He wanted European technology to create a great
  army to support Russia as a great power.
  
• By Peters death in 1725, Russia was an important
  European state.
  

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Peter the Great

• To create his army, Peter drafted peasants for
  25year stints.
  
• He also formed the first Russian navy.
• He divided Russia into provinces to rule more
  effectively.
  
• He wanted to create a police state, by which he
  meant a well-ordered community governed by law.
  

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Peter the Great

• Peter introduced Western customs and etiquette.
• At court, Russian beards had to be shaved and
  coats shortened, for example, as were the customs
  in Europe.
  
• Upper-class women gained much from Peters
  reforms.
  
• He insisted they remove their veils, and he held
  gatherings for conversation and dancing where the
  sexes mixed, as in Europe.
  

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Peter the Great

• Peters goal was to make Russia a great power.
• An important part of this was finding a port with
  access to Europe through the Baltic Sea.
  
• At the time Sweden controlled the Baltic.
• Peter warred with Sweden, and he acquired the
  lands he needed.
  
• In 1703 on the Baltic, he began construction of a
  new city, St. Petersburg.
  
• It was the Russian capital until 1917.